July 25, 2012 "Information
Clearing House" -- For the last 18
months, Syria has been prey to troubles that have steadily
increased to become a widespread armed conflict having
already killed about 20,000 people. If there is consensus on
this observation, narratives and interpretations vary
beyond.

For
Western states and their press, the Syrians aspire to live
in the Western market democracies. Following the Tunisian,
Egyptian and Libyan "Arab Spring" models, they rose
up to overthrow their dictator Bashar al-Assad. The latter
suppressed the demonstrations with bloodshed. While
Westerners would have liked to intervene to stop the
massacre, the Russians and Chinese, out of self-interest or
contempt for human life, opposed intervention.

On the
contrary for all other states that are not vassals of the
U.S. and for their media, the U.S. launched an operation
planned a long time ago against Syria. First, through its
regional allies, and then directly, they have introduced
armed bands, modeled on the Contras in Nicaragua, that have
destabilized the country. But they found only very weak
domestic support and were routed while Russia and China
prevented NATO’s destroying the Syrian army and reversing
the regional equation.

Who is
telling the truth? Who is wrong?

Armed groups in Syria do not
defend democracy, they fight against it

First,
the interpretation of Syrian events as an episode of the "Arab
Spring" is an illusion because this "spring" has
no basis in reality. This is an advertising slogan to
positively present unrelated facts. Although there has been
a popular revolt in Tunisia, Yemen and Bahrain, there was
none in neither Egypt nor Libya. In Egypt, the street
demonstrations have been limited to the capital and parts of
the middle class; never, absolutely never, have the Egyptian
people identified with the telegenic spectacle of Tahrir
Square [1].
In Libya, there was no political revolt, but a separatist
movement in Cyrenaica against the power of Tripoli, and the
military intervention of NATO, which cost the lives of about
160,000 people.

The
Lebanese station NourTV has been very successful
airing a series of broadcasts by Hassan Hamade entitled "The
Arab Spring, from Lawrence of Arabia to Bernard-Henri Levy."
The authors develop therein the idea that the "Arab
Spring" is a remake of the "Arab Revolt" of
1916-1918 orchestrated by the British against the Ottomans.
This time, Westerners have manipulated situations to upset a
generation of leaders and impose the Muslim Brotherhood. In
fact, the "Arab Spring" is false advertising. Now,
Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Gaza are governed by a
brotherhood; on the one hand imposing a moral order and on
the other supporting Zionism and pseudo-liberal capitalism,
that is to say the interests of Israel and the
Anglo-Americans. The illusion was dispelled. Some authors,
like Syria’s Said Hilal Alcharifi, now deride the "NATO
spring".

Secondly, the leaders of the Syrian National Council (SNC)
as well as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) commanders are not
democratic at all, in the sense that they would be
favourable to "a government of the people, by the people,
for the people", according to Abraham Lincoln’s formula
taken from the French Constitution.

Thus,
the first president of the SNC was the Paris academic,
Burhan Ghalioun. He was in no way "a Syrian opponent
persecuted by the regime" since he circulated freely in
and out of his country. Nor was he a "secular
intellectual" as he claims, since he was the political
advisor to the Algerian Abbassi Madani, President of the
Islamic Salvation Front (ISF), now a refugee in Qatar.
His successor, Abdel Basset Syda [2]
entered politics only in the last months, and immediately
established himself as a mere executor of US wishes. Upon
his election as head of the SNC, he pledged not to defend
the will of his people, but to implement the "road map"
that Washington drew up for Syria: The Day After.

Nor
are the Free Syrian Army fighters champions of democracy.
They recognize the spiritual authority of sheikh Adnan
Alrour, a takfirist preacher, who calls for the overthrow
and killing of Assad, not for political reasons but simply
because Assad is of the Alawite faith, that is to say a
heretic in the preacher’s eyes. All of the identified
officers in the FSA are Sunnis and all of the FSA brigades
are named after historical Sunni figures. The "revolutionary
tribunals" of the FSA sentence their political opponents
to death (and not only supporters of Bashar al-Assad) and
they slaughter the unbelievers in public. The FSA program is
to end the secular regime installed by the Baath, the SSNP
and the Communist Party in favor of a pure religious Sunni
regime.

The Syrian conflict was
premeditated by the West

The
western will to end Syria is known and it is quite
sufficient to explain current events. Let us recall some
facts that leave no doubt as to the premeditation of these
events [3].

The
decision to go to war with Syria was made by President
George W. Bush at a Camp David meeting on September 15,
2001, just after the spectacular attacks in New York and
Washington. Simultaneously attacks were planned in Libya to
demonstrate the ability to act in two theaters at once. This
decision was corroborated by the testimony of General Wesley
Clark, former NATO supreme commander, who was opposed to it.

In the
wake of the fall of Baghdad, in 2003, Congress passed two
laws instructing the President of the United States to
prepare wars against Libya and Syria (the Syria
Accountability Act).

In
2004, Washington accused Syria of harbouring the weapons of
mass destruction that could not be found in Iraq. This
accusation fizzled when it was admitted that the weapons
never existed and were but a pretext for invading Iraq.

In
2005, after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, Washington
attempted to go to war against Syria, but could not manage
it as Syria withdrew its army from Lebanon. The United
States then elicited fake testimonials to accuse President
al-Assad of ordering the attack and they created a special
international court to try him. But they were ultimately
forced to withdraw their false accusations when their
manipulations were brought to the light of day.

In
2006, the U.S. began to prepare the "Syrian revolution"
by creating the Syria Democracy Program. The idea was
to create and fund pro-Western opposition groups (such as
the Movement for Justice and Development). Official funding
from the State Department was supplemented by secret CIA
funding via an association from California, the Democracy
Council.

Also
in 2006, the U.S. outsourced to Israel a war against Lebanon
in the hope of involving Syria in order to justify
intervention. But Hezbollah’s quick victory foiled that
plan.

In
2007, Israel attacked Syria, bombing a military installation
(Operation Orchard). But again, Damascus kept its cool and
did not let itself get embroiled in war. Subsequent audits
by the International Atomic Energy Agency showed that the
target was not a nuclear site, contrary to what had been
claimed by the Israelis.

In
2008, during NATO’s annual Bilderberg Group meeting, the
Director of the Arab Reform Initiative, Bassma Kodmani, and
the director of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik,
Volker Perthes, demonstrated briefly to the Euro-American
Gotha the economic, political and military benefits of
possible intervention by the Alliance in Syria.

In
2009, the CIA set up tools of propaganda destined for Syria
such as the BaradaTV channel, based in London, and
Dubai-based OrientTV.

To
these historical elements, let’s add that a meeting was held
in Cairo, the second week of February 2011, around John
McCain, Joe Lieberman and Bernard-Henry Levy, figures like
Mahmoud Jibril Libya (then number two in the Libyan
Jamahiriya government) and Syrian personalities like Malik
al-Abdeh and Ammar Qurabi. It was this meeting that gave the
signal for covert operations that began in both Libya and
Syria (February 15th in Benghazi and 17th in Damascus).

In
January 2012, the U.S. Departments of State and Defense
formed the Task Force named The Day After: Supporting a
democratic transition in Syria, which drafted both a new
constitution for Syria and a governance program [4].

In May
of 2012, NATO and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) set up
the Working Group on Economic Recovery and Development of
the Friends of the Syrian People, under German and Emirati
co-chairmanship. Therein, the Syrian-British economist Ossam
el-Kadi worked out a plan to divide Syrian wealth among
coalition member states, to apply the "day after"
(that is to say, after the overthrow of the regime by NATO
and the GCC) [5].

Revolutionaries or
counter-revolutionaries?

The
armed groups did not spring from peaceful protests in
February 2011. These events in fact denounced corruption and
demanded more freedoms, whereas the armed groups- as we have
seen above- emerge from Islamism.

In
recent years, a terrible economic crisis has hit the
countryside. It was due to poor harvests, which were wrongly
assessed as passing misfortunes while they were in reality
the consequences of chronic climate change. To this are
added errors in the implementation of economic reforms that
have disrupted the primary sector. This was followed by a
massive rural exodus which the government has managed, and a
sectarian drifting away of some farmers neglected by the
powers. In many areas, rural housing was not concentrated in
villages, but dispersed as isolated farms, no one had
measured the extent of this phenomenon until its adherents
congregated.

Ultimately, while the Syrian society embodies the paradigm
of religious tolerance, a takfirist current developed
within. It provided the basis for the armed groups. These
have been richly funded by Wahhabi monarchies (Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Sharjjah).
This windfall has led to the rallying of new fighters which
include relatives of the victims of the massive crackdown
against the failed bloody Muslim Brotherhood coup in 1982.
Their motive is often less ideological than personal. It
springs from vendetta.
Many thugs and habitual criminals lured by easy money
joined: a "revolutionary" is paid seven times the
average wage.
Finally, professionals who fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia,
Chechnya or Iraq started pouring in. At the head of these
are the men of Al Qaeda in Libya, led by Abdelhakim Belhaj
in person [6]
The media present them as jihadists, which is inappropriate,
Islam not conceiving of holy war against fellow Muslims.
These are primarily mercenaries.

Western media and the Gulf press both insist on the presence
of deserters in the FSA. That is certain, but it is false to
claim that they defected after refusing to suppress
political demonstrations. The deserters in question almost
always come from cases similar to those we described above.
Moreover, any army of 300,000 men would perforce have in its
ranks its share of religious fanatics and thugs.

Armed
groups use a Syrian flag with a green band (instead of the
red band) and three stars (instead of two). The Western
press calls it the "flag of independence", as it was
in effect at the time of independence in 1946. In reality,
this is the flag of the French mandate which remained in
force during the country’s formal independence (1932-1958).
The three stars represent the three districts of religious
colonialism (Alawite, Druze and Christian). Using this flag
is certainly not the equivalent of brandishing a
revolutionary symbol. On the contrary, it is to affirm the
will to prolong the colonial project, that of the
Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 and the remodeling of the "Greater
Middle East".

Over
the 18 months of armed action, these armed groups structured
and more or less coordinated themselves. As it stands, the
vast majority have come under Turkish command, under the
label of Free Syrian Army. In fact, they have become
auxiliaries of NATO; their headquarters is even located on
the NATO air base at Incirlik. Hard core Islamists have
formed their own organizations or have joined al-Qaida. They
are under the control of Qatar or of the Sudeiri branch of
the Saudi royal family [7].
They are de facto attached to the CIA.

This
progressive constitution, which starts with poor farmers and
ends with an influx of mercenaries, is identical to what we
saw in Nicaragua when the CIA organized the Contras to
overthrow the Sandinistas, or to what we had known in Cuba
when the CIA organized the landing of the Bay of Pigs to
overthrow Castro. It is precisely this model that the Syrian
armed groups now claim as their own: in May of 2012, Miami
Cuban Contras organized counter-revolutionary guerrilla war
training seminars for their Syrian counterparts [8].

CIA
methods are the same everywhere. Thus, the Syrian Contras
focused their military action in part on the creation of
permanent bases (but none held, not even the Islamic Emirate
of Baba Amr), then economic sabotage (destruction of
infrastructure and burning down large factories), and
finally terrorist tactics (derailment of passenger trains,
car bomb attacks at popular sites, killing religious,
political and military leaders).

In
consequence, that part of the Syrian population which could
have had sympathy for armed groups at the onset of events,
believing that they represented an alternative to the
current regime, have become progressively disaffected.

Not
surprisingly, the battle of Damascus has consisted in the
convergence on the capital of 7,000 fighters scattered
around the country and mercenary armies based in neighboring
countries. Tens of thousands of Contras have tried to enter
the country. They moved simultaneously in numerous columns
of pick-up trucks, preferring to cross deserts than travel
the highways. Some of them were stopped by aerial
bombardment and had to turn back. Others, after seizing the
border crossings, reached the capital. They have not found
the hoped for popular support. Rather, it is the people that
have guided the National Army soldiers to identify them and
weed them out. Eventually they were forced to retreat and
have announced that, failing to take Damascus, they would
take Aleppo. Moreover, it shows they are neither Damascenes
in revolt, nor Aleppians, but transient fighters.

Contra infiltration through
the desert near Dera

The
unpopularity of the armed groups should be compared with the
popularity of the regular army and self-defense militia. The
Syrian National Army is a conscript army, so it’s a people’s
army, and it is unthinkable that it can be used for
political repression. Recently, the government authorized
the creation of neighborhood militias. It distributed
weapons to citizens who are committed to devote 2 hours of
their time every day to defend their neighborhood, under
military supervision.

The moon is made of green
cheese

In his
time, President Reagan met some difficulties trying to
present Contras as "revolutionary." He created a
structure for this propaganda, the Bureau of Public
Diplomacy, the management of which he entrusted to Otto
Reich [9].
The latter corrupted journalists in most major U.S. and
Western European media to poison the well of public opinion.
Among others, he launched a rumor that the Sandinistas had
chemical weapons and might use them against their own
people. Today propaganda is directed from the White House by
the deputy national security adviser in charge of strategic
communications, Ben Rhodes. He employs the old methods and
has spread rumors of chemical weapons against President
al-Assad.

In
collaboration with the British MI6, Rhodes managed to impose
a phantom structure as the main source of information for
Western news agencies: the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights (OSDH). The media have never questioned the
credibility of this outfit, even though its allegations were
denied by the observers of the Arab League and by those of
the United Nations. Better yet, this phantom structure,
which has neither offices nor staff nor expertise, has also
become the source of information for European chancelleries
since the White House convinced them to withdraw their
diplomatic staff from Syria.

While waiting to be on live,
the Al-Jazeera correspondent, Khaled Abou Saleh,
phones his editor. He claims that Baba Amr is being bombed
and organizes the sound effects. M. Abou Saleh was François
Hollande’s guest of honour at the 3rd Conference of the
Friends of Syria.

Ben
Rhodes also organised shows for journalists thirsting for
sensationalism. Two tour operations have been established,
one in the office of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and the
second at the offices of the former Lebanese Prime Minister
Fouad Siniora. Willing journalists were invited to enter
illegally into Syria through smugglers. For months, a trip
was offered from the Turkish border to a remote witness
village located in the mountains. You could have a photo
shoot with "revolutionaries" and "share the daily
lives of combatants." Then the more sporting crowd could
visit the Islamic Emirate of Baba Amr from the Lebanese
border.

Oddly
enough, many journalists observed huge falsifications for
themselves, but they did not draw any conclusions. Thus, a
famous photojournalist filmed the Baba Amr "revolutionaries"
burning tires to release black smoke and make believe in a
bombing in the neighborhood. He broadcast these images on
Channel4 [10],
but continued to claim that he had witnessed the bombardment
of Baba Amr as narrated by the Syrian Observatory of Human
Rights. Or again, the New York Times noted that
pictures and videos sent by the press service of the Free
Syrian Army showing valiant fighters were staged [11].
Weapons of war were actually replicas, toys for children.
The newspaper has nevertheless continued to believe in the
existence of an army of deserters numbering nearly 100,000
men.

Reading a statement from the
Free Syrian Army. The proud "deserters" are extras who carry
fake weapons.

According to a classical irony, journalists prefer to lie
than admit that they have been manipulated. Once duped, they
consciously participate in the development of the lie they
have discovered. The question is whether you, readers of
this article, also prefer to close your eyes or if you
decide to support the Syrian people against the Contras’
aggression.

French
intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network
and the Axis for Peace Conference. Professor of
International Relations at the Centre for Strategic
Studies in Damascus. His columns specializing in
international relations feature in daily newspapers and
weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His
last two books published in English :
9/11 the Big Lie and
Pentagate.

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